Wallace Koopmans Artlog

I’m sure the original developers of this lenticular camera system couldn’t have envisioned wiggle grams, but without the ability to print these images, as they were intended, this is a pretty good substitute. The idea is similar in a way. With The original prints you view one image at a time by changing the angle that you view the print at either by moving the print or your ocular system (eyes it sounded more technical). Each of the four images are visible at a different angle because of the lenticular filter in front of the image. With a wiggle gram the images are shown in place and in sequence giving the 3D effect.

These were shot using the Nishika N8000 of course and another post about it can be seen here Nishika N8000

I’ve been thinking about how to demonstrate the difference between these two 3d “cameras” but it’s not really possible in this 2d format. So it comes down to words I guess. Starting with the screens , despite the fact that both units display a 3d image without the need of glasses the Fuji screen is far superior. The 3.5″ Fuji screen has 1.15Mpixels doubling the HTC’s 4.3″ touchscreen with 540 x 960 resolution.  The images displayed on the Fuji are clearer and more colourful. The difference continues with the lenses and sensors,  The Fuji has two 10Mpixel 1/2.3″ CCD behind 3x zoom lenses that provides 35mm equivalent focal lengths of 35 to 105mm.  The HTC lens and sensor are a bit of a mystery to me but they are a pair of 5Mpixel units and that is halved again when shooting 3D.  The fact is it isn’t much of a contest, the Fuji is better all around but then it doesn’t make phone calls or post to Instagram. The surprise reaction of people who see the 3d image suggests to me that it is still a bit of a gimmick, this is also true because of the difficulty of doing anything with the 3d image. I don’t own any other device to display 3d images so they really are only of interest on the camera itself for now. In a sense when I’m taking 3d pictures I’m hedging that they will be of greater interest in the future.  This is almost a truism of all photography as they represent a moment in time that won’t be repeated. I’m just doing it in an extra dimension.

The first image is down-sampled from the 7Mpixel Fuji file and the second from the HTC’s 2Mpixel file.  At full resolution the difference is much more apparent.

This mix of samples from the two “cameras” are being displayed as animated GIF’s or wigglegrams.  The two images are toggling back and forth giving a view as if you stopped time and moved your head from side to side, you can stop time can’t you?

I made the animations smaller for slower Internet connections.

The Nishika N8000 was  designed for making lenticular prints.  The type of print where the image appears different depending on your viewing angle.  In order to do this is has 4 30mm lenses spaced across the front that all have  shutters that trip at the same time.  The outer two lenses are spaced apart about the distance of human eyes and give a stereoscopic view.  However what you can do is scan the 35mm negatives in and build the resulting files into an animated GIF.